Shadow of the Silk Road

Colin Thubron

Following the old Silk Road westward from China, Colin Thubron moves through landscapes connected by centuries of trade, belief and displacement. Ruined cities and living settlements become occasions for encounters with people whose concerns rarely fit the grand historical narrative surrounding them. The journey crosses languages and borders while repeatedly exposing the fragility of belonging. Thubron’s attention to memory, conversation and the traces of vanished worlds makes the route feel less like a single road than an accumulation of human passages.

Central Asia; Landscape; Memory